Jack Goff takes maiden BTCC pole position at Snetterton

Eurotech Racing’s Jack Goff has taken his maiden British Touring Car Championship pole position with a dominant performance at Snetterton, beating West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington by nearly half a second.

At the circuit where he took his only win to date in the series, Goff lapped in 1.55.786 in his Honda Civic Type-R to finish 0.460 ahead of Turkington’s BMW 125i M-Sport and 0.589 ahead of Team BMR’s Ash Sutton in third.

The 26-year-old put himself at the top of the times with a 1.56.039 after nine minutes, before bettering that by around 0.3s in the final third of the 30-minute session.

For his part, Sutton had jumped up to third in the final stages before losing the laptime for exceeding track limits, but he saved enough tyre life to go again and re-take the position on his final run.

West Surrey Racing’s Andrew Jordan and Rob Collard were seventh and ninth, sandwiching Team BMR’s Jason Plato, with Team Hard’s Jake Hill an excellent 10th in his Volkswagen CC.

It was a disastrous session for the factory Honda team, with the Team Dynamics pair of championship leader Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal in 20th and 23rd respectively.

Neal ran as high as third in the early stages but lost his best time when he failed the ride height test, while Shedden wasn’t able to break into the top 20 at any stage.

Elsewhere, debutant Brett Smith qualified 22nd for his first BTCC race in the second Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type-R, while Stewart Lines was 31st and last on his return in his Maximum Motorsport Ford Focus.